Kelley Blue Book Reviews 

The instant cash offer gave a list of dealerships that would give the quote that I received online. After receiving the “instant cash offer,” dealerships all over town blew up our phone. We scheduled appointments at three dealerships that would provide the instant cash offer. Didn’t happen. One dealership was disrespectful (Oxmoor Toyota Louisville). The other places didn’t even come close to the quote.

Here’s the thing… Kelley blue book says I can redeem the instant cash offer at participating dealerships. But it’s not true. Not one offered the quote, and one told me to take it somewhere else. These were the places indicated that I should go to and sell the car.

Deceitful. Untrue. Just another lead generating subscription model for dealerships to get traffic onto their lot.

Would give zero stars if I could. There are no legitimate offers just instant harassment from local dealerships via text and email. Weeks later I am still being contacted after telling them to leave me alone. Never even got a specific price.

I had a cash offer from Peddle on my 2003 Toyota Camry and was set to have it picked up for $885, I just checked to see is KBB cash offer could beat the offer. They said $1407, I received an offer from Stone Mountain Voltswagon and although Melina the rep was very nice, they eventually went down to $250. I did not cancel my Peddle pickup and made it to my appointment on time. This was a waste of time. And I wish I never even plugged in my information. You make an offer, you need to stick to it.

Kbb gives you a estimate for vehicle and does not honor it. They just want you to go to dealership and then they will lower bid even more. Below is text from meetings with Stepan Wade in Saint george dealerships.
Dan great working with you yesterday. Very disappointed with your Dodge boss not honoring his offer.
Tell that boss to take marketing lessons and maybe learn to interact with customers.
His estimate was supposed to be good for 7 days per kbb and would not honor it 30 minutes later

Cash Offer is a payment for your vehicle without having to buy another . Do not except a Cash Offer price for your trade in . Trade in prices are much higher !!!! Do not fall for the cash offer low ball scam !!!!

A total waste of time. This is just a way for dealers to get you to come into their place so they can offer you half or less of the original cash offer. Don’t waste your time as it’s a complete scam.

We used the Instant Cash offer because we trusted KBB. We got an offer from a local dealer which was more than fair and took them up on it. It's been 3 1/2 weeks and we still haven't received the remainder of the money due to us after payoff. The dealer (McLarty Ford in NLR, AR) refuses to pay until they have title in hand, even though they have our vehicle and the title is with a large national lender. In my mind this is neither INSTANT or CASH, only trouble. 3 1/2 weeks and counting. Getting ready to call the police for theft of property. I don't think KBB is to blame for our problem, but they shouldn't let bad dealerships use this service, no matter if that dealer pays KBB to use this Instant Cash offer service. In the end the consumer is the one who pays.

My honest review is KBB instant cash offer was fantastic. I had no issues at all. After researching what it was worth and looking at other places, a KBB representative came to my house to do an estimate. Within 15 minutes I had a written offer. I drove it to the dealership and within 10 minutes we were done. Best transaction ever!

First of all know what your value is and know what you can accept. I got exactly what I was looking for without haggling. Which is my favorite past time! I felt like I was walking away from this transaction without being taken advantage of. I would recommend this service to any one of my friends and family.

Filled out all the info, mileage, damage, color etc.... Then it says take my car to the below listed dealer to get my offer. What? They do not offer up any number at all, not even a range of values. 100% useless. All they did was collect my info.

I completed all the information for the Instant Cash Offer. This included mileage, condition of the car, appearance, mechanical issues and so on. This was for an 18 year old luxury car with over 200000 miles and not working AC. Everything else is working just fine. KBB site indicated that the offer cannot be presented to me without additional assessment of the car. OK, fair enough for an old car. Quite quickly I was contacted by dealers who expressed interest in my car. I made an appointment with one of them, drove 20 miles one way to the dealership and somebody from the dealership assessed the car by looking at it and driving it around the lot. Then I was told that they would not be able to offer anything. I contacted the other dealer who expressed interest and this time, after few hours, I received a message that my car "came back as ineligible for an offer". OK, it is an old car, but my question is if anyone actually read the information provided by me to KBB before contacting me. I am OK learning that my car is not a candidate for re-sale, but I am disappointed that I needed to waste time and money for no reason as, quite obviously, the information that I provided to KBB was sufficient for the dealers and they could have told me right away that they were not interested. The only positive is that I got one more, albeit short road trip in my old car that served me so well for over 18 years. BTW - I had no problems whatsoever to sell my car on the same day when the dealers "rejected" it.

A big joke I don't know if it's rigged to trick people but I have a 2016 f350 Lariat 6.7 powerstroke diesel with low miles go to online sites dealers are selling trucks with my trim and miles for 54,000 dollars what did kbb offer me? 33,000!! LOL!

I have been a fan of KBB my entire life and used KBB often for vehicle valuation. KBB has always been an accurate, credible and professional source. But this "Instant Cash Offer" is a complete time wasting Scam to get you to the dealer and does not reflect the ridiculous offer the dealer plans to present.

It's unfortunate that the trusted name and reputation of Kelley Blue Book has been tarnished in my eyes due to a bad experience I had attempting to use the Instant Cash Offer service to try to sell my car. I understood that I would NOT be dealing with Kelley Blue Book to attempt to sell my car for instant cash. It is a service offered to car dealers and car buying companies who pay KBB to attract your business. The initial offer you are shown on the site after filling out the required info is a starting point to draw you to a dealer. I read the fine print and disclaimers associated with using the service, but I never expected KBB's nonchalant attitude after my complaint about a local car dealership I was directed to using the service. The dealership experience I had lived up to the stereotype of dealing with sleazy car salesmen. They were dishonest and I felt scammed. They used the disclaimer of the fine print reserving their right to justify reducing the original offer price more than $1000 from the KBB offer generated. AND, if I accepted the dealers low balled offer, the procedure was that I sign over my vehicle and leave my vehicle with them and have to wait 10 days to two weeks for payment. Their deceptive practice had me going to the dealership twice before all this information was disclosed. Each time I returned, they found "so called" things wrong with my car to justify reducing their offer. Totally uncalled for during a pandemic where you had to wait in the dealership, dealing with multiple people. There are plenty of companies out there that truly offer instant cash for cars. Fortunately, I found a company online that actually paid me instantly for my car. It was a totally contact-less transaction, everyone I dealt with acted professionally, AND I received a check in hand, as my car was towed from my driveway, paying me very close to the original KBB offer. Shame on you KBB for providing a deceitful service leading clients to deal with deceitful car dealerships and car buying companies who pay you.

tried to use the kbb instant cash program. there is nothing instant about it and there is no cash. it is a scam. dealers wanted me to bring the title, keys and vehicle and wait for weeks to get paid, even though the car is paid off and clear title in hand. this is bs.

I have a two year old Toyota Sequoia, Totally loaded. KBB printed out $42,763.00 based on actual information. Dealer tried to offer $34,915.00 and entered it in KBB so 2nd dealer will be worthless. Does Fraud, misrepresentation and "bait and switch" come to mind. I highly recommend to never trust this service.

I recently entered in my info to see what Kelley blue book was going to offer me for my car as I was hoping to sell it (I ended up selling to CarMax). However, after I entered my information on their website they handed my info (home address and cell phone number) out on some list to endless dealerships and now I am getting barraged with phone calls every single day asking about my car if its still for sale and if I can bring it into their dealership. What an invasion of privacy and who knows who these people actually are.... They all leave voice mails or speak to me on the phone and parrot the same line of "we are partners with KBB and receive information on customers who want to sell their vehicle..." They will openly sell your info do not check your car's value here, look up at Carmax or go into a local dealership instead of this website.

I am writing this review as a reply to the review bellow. Dude your Audi and Ford dealer are talking bulshit because they are not approved for KBB ICO Buying centers and also they are loosing customers. They are just jealous. By the way KBB is not a scam. They are transperent with everybody. You got a low offer a year ago mostly because the market was different. Today the market is crazy! That is why you got higher offer from your dealer not because of something else. And yes. Your Audi and Ford dealer are listing their cars on Autotrader and are using vAuto and Provision to price and list their cars which by the way are owned by the same company as KBB - Cox Automotive. But wait.... they are also selling cars to auction - Manheim which is the largest one in the country. Do you know who owns it? Yes right - Cox Automotive. Do you get it? KBB is not putting random numbers. They are getting the average market price from all this places where your dealers are either listing cars for sale or selling or buying used cars from. So your friends are talking complete BS because they either have no idea about what I said or they are just jealous because they cant get one of KBB ICO centers because now thousands of dealers want it but KBB does not allow bunch of dealers in the same area to have it or they get a lot of "KBB said my car is worth 3000 dollars more than what you offer me as a trade" customers or may be all 3 together. So don`t believe what they say because at the moment they got approved for ICO they will turn their table.

I went to my audi dealer in early 2019 for a quote on a used Audi and ask them why there quote on my earlier Audi that I had was so low compared to its actual value because the cars online we're going for 3 to 4000 more then the trade-in or instant cash offer that Kelley blue book was offering for my Audi and my Audi dealer told me that it was a huge scam that kelley blue book has been doing for years and through there commission that they make they have paid reviews that they pay for yearly from each car dealer in sums of thousands of people from each company and manufacturer of cars. A year later I went to my Ford dealer and had brought up my friend who works at the Audi dealership in the nearby town who I've been doing business with both of them for years and brought up the point that the Audi dealer made and I didn't even get through the sentence when he cut me off erupting, absolutely!! He is telling the truth every single word of it is the downright cold hard truth. Kelley blue book has been a scam since day one. Saying, how could you trust a car evaluation and appraisal company that takes offers of instant Cash and trade-ins that are thousands of dollars lower? and obviously a huge chunk and percentage off the actual price of the vehicle and what it's worth. Just two sell it to the dealer with a foregoing commission with hundreds of cars every week. There's been proof that they pay for their reviews it was leaked almost 10 years ago in black and white. But professionals in dealerships have known about this for years before that. People need to get this out in the open so good American citizens in this country are not scammed anymore by this scandalous disgusting company that are no better than greasy auctioneers and middle men. Thank you for taking your time to hear my experience I'm from Western Washington and I went to school out here in a little country town and I worked on a farm as my first job 4 almost 10 years have been falling trees and managing landscaping company and a jewelry business on the side so I've had my hands in just about everything so I'm not in upper scale or lower scale person I'm just a American citizen who knows when is scam shouldn't be going on any more and I'd like to see it stop enough is enough screw Kelley blue book it's obvious they're doing this you have to be pretty blind to not see it and I'm putting it out there it's a dying company sincerely DW May the wind fill your sails and the sun on your face have a great day!

Used KBB for a cash offer. They priced well, but dealer was $6,000 lower. What a joke - car is worth $30,000 on dealer lot, but only $20,000 to me?! Ha! Nice try at a rip-off

Just like other reviewers, KBB estimated the value of my vehicle to be $7,000 below actual market value both with their standard tool and the Instant Cash Value tool where I entered my VIN and other specific points of info.
KBB valued my vehicle at $24,000. I sold it a week later to a DEALER, not private buyer, for $31,100.
I can't imagine the amount of people who get scammed out of the cash they are entitled to by using KBB. Should be illegal honestly. Complete scam.
Talk to actual buyers. Most of them will give you at least a ballpark value over the phone or a "max" value for your vehicle in perfect condition, and you can reasonably reduce the value with your own estimates if you have dings, mechanical or cosmetic issues, need tires, etc.
Bottom line, don't use KBB.